


The Initiate

by Sawsbuck Coffee (RosesAndTheInternet)



Series: Changing Times: A Divergent Rewrite [3]
Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:16:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25472992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosesAndTheInternet/pseuds/Sawsbuck%20Coffee
Summary: Four of Dauntless is free, free at last. But is this the freedom for which he asked?
Series: Changing Times: A Divergent Rewrite [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/938712
Kudos: 1





	The Initiate

_September 20th, Year 497 [2 years 11 months 12 days until The Fateless]_

The training room smells like effort; like sweat, dust, and shoes.

It smells bad. The training room smells really, really bad.

Even with the gloves on, every time my fist hits the punching bag it stings my knuckles, which have been split over and over again from two and a half weeks of training. The past half a week has been spent in physical fights against my fellow transfers. 

“So I guess you saw the board,” Amar says, leaning against one of the stone pillars. He crosses his arms.

“I could always use the extra practice,” I say, stepping back from the punching bag and shaking out my hands. Sometimes when I train I clench my hands so hard that I lose feeling in my fingertips. “Maybe we all could.”

I almost lost my first fight, I was up against Mia and I didn’t know how to beat her without hitting her. She had no problem hitting me though. I couldn’t bring myself to throw a punch until she had me in a chokehold and my vision was starting to go black at the edges My instincts took over, and just one hard elbow to her jaw knocked her down. I still feel guilty when I think about it.

I almost lost my second fight too up against one of the bigger Candor boys, Sean. I wore him out, crawling back to my feet every time he thought that I was finished. He didn’t know that pushing through pain is one of my oldest habits, learned young, like chewing on my thumbnail, or holding my fork in my left hand instead of my right.

My third fight was up against an Erudite boy with long black hair, Kai. He was quick and talkative, knocked me around and critiquing me all the while until I punched him in the mouth more to shut him up than anything else. To my great surprise, he feels no ill will toward me; he’s friendly and has offered to give me some pointers if I wanted. I haven’t taken him up on that offer and I won’t, he’s too talkative for my liking.

Tomorrow my opponent is Eric. Beating him will take more than a clever move or persistence. It will take skill that I don’t have and strength that I haven’t gained. I want to beat him more than I’ve wanted anything in a while, but I don’t think that I will be able to and the thought burns me.

“Yeah, I know.” Amar laughs. “See, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out what your deal is, so I’ve been asking around. You spend all your time before breakfast and after dinner in here, you never spend any time with the other initiates, you’re always exhausted and you sleep like a corpse.”

I shrug off the statement. I haven’t met an initiate yet that I find to be worth my time; Mia and Kai have been friendly but I don’t exactly want to be friends with them.

“Joining a faction is about more than getting through initiation, you know,” Amar steadies the punching bag and meets my eyes. “For most of the Dauntless, they meet their best friends during initiation, their girlfriends, boyfriends, whatever. Enemies, too. But you seem determined not to have any of those things.”

I’ve seen the other initiates together, beginning to form their little cliques and coming to training with skin bright red, newly pierced, or tattoos, or building towers out of scraps of food in the dining hall. It never even occurred to me that I might be able to be one of them.

I shrug again. “I’m used to being alone.”

“Well, I feel like you’re about to snap, and I don’t really want to be there when it happens,” he says. “Come on. A bunch of us are going to play a game tonight. A Dauntless game.”

I pick at the gloves. I shouldn’t go out and play games, I should stay and work so that I might stand a fighting chance at winning my fight tomorrow.

But that voice, the one that says “ _should_ ,” now sounds to me like my father’s voice, requiring me to behave, to isolate myself. And I came here because I was ready to stop listening to that voice.

“I’m offering you some Dauntless status for no particular reason other than that I feel bad for you,” he says. “Don’t be stupid and miss this opportunity.”

“Fine,” I say. “What game?”

Amar only smiles at me and beckons to follow him. On our way out, he rubs the top of my head, ruffling my choppy hair. “Loving the new cut, by the way.”

“Heh, thanks.” I rub the back of my head, feeling the newly shorn locks. With my first few credits I got someone to chop off all of the long brown hair until I was left with just some that hangs in my face, that I don’t bother to tie back except when I fight. It’s not like I ever knew how to style my hair anyways, and it keeps people from saying that I look like a girl.

* * *

“The game is called Dare.”

A Dauntless woman, Amelie, holds onto the edge of the train door, swaying back and forth and giggling. Sometimes it looks like she’s going to fall out but then she’ll yank herself back in again and laugh even harder like the train isn’t suspended two stories above the ground, like she wouldn’t die if she fell out. Tucked into her back pocket is a silver flask that gleams in the moonlight at the right angle and blinds anyone who happens to be looking at it.

She turns her head back to look at us all in the car, an aqua colored curl falling into her face. “First person picks someone and dares them to do something. Then that person has a drink, does the dare, and gets a chance to dare someone else to do something. And when everyone has done their dare – or died trying – we get a little drunk and stumble home.”

“How do you win?” one of the Dauntless sitting on the other side of the train car calls out. He leans against Amar like they’re old friends, the kind that are close enough to be considered family.

I’m not the only initiate in the car. Sitting across from me is Zeke, the first jumper, and next to him is a girl with short brown hair and a pierced lip. The other Dauntless are older, members ranging in ages from middle age to only looking a year or so older than me. Three of those older members are the ones that were following Azalea around that first night; the brunette, and the pair that are probably siblings with the salt and pepper hair. A fourth sits with them, a woman with purple streaks in her black hair and dramatic makeup around her eyes. All the Dauntless have a kind of ease around each other, leaning into one another, punching one another’s arms, tousling one another’s hair. It’s camaraderie and friendship and flirtation, and none of it is familiar to me. I try to relax, bending my arms around my knees.

I really am a Stiff.

“You win by not being a little pansycake,” Amelie says.

“And hey, new rule,” says the man with the unruly salt and pepper hair. His voice is gruff and low, like sandpaper. “You win by not asking dumb questions.” He laughs at his own joke, a laugh that is just as scratchy.

“As keeper of the alcohol, I will go first,” Amelie says. “Amar, I dare you to go into the Erudite library while all the Noses are studying and do something obscene.”

She uncaps the flask and tosses it to Amar, he catches it easily and the others cheer as he takes a drink.

“Just tell me when we get to the right stop!” he shouts over the cheering.

Zeke waves his hand in front of me. “Hey, you’re a transfer, right? Four?”

“Four,” I repeat with a nod. “Nice first jump.”

I consider too late that it might be a sore spot for him, his moment of triumph ruined by bad balance. But instead he just laughs.

“Yeah, not my finest moment.”

“Not like anyone else stepped up,” says the girl at Zeke’s side. “I’m Shauna, by the way. Is it true you only had four fears?”

“It’s my name for a reason,” I say.

“Wow.” She nods and looks me over, seeming impressed. “Guess you were really born Dauntless.”

I shrug, like what she says might be true, even though I’m sure it’s not. She doesn’t know that I came here to escape the life I was meant for, that I’m fighting so hard to get through initiation so I don’t have to admit that I’m an imposter. Abnegation-born, Abnegation result, in a Dauntless haven.

“How are your fights going?” Zeke asks.

“Alright.” I shrug. “Not as well as I’d like.” I gesture to all the bruises on my face.

“Check it out.” Zeke turns his head, showing me a large bruise on the underside of his jaw. “That’s thanks to this girl over here.” He jabs at Shauna with his thumb.

“He beat me,” Shauna says. “But I got a good shot in, for once. I keep losing.”

“It doesn’t bother you that he hit you?” I say.

“Why would it?” she says.

“I don’t know. Because you’re...friends?”

“Aw,” Shauna coos. “Aw that’s cute.”

I flush, curling in on myself. I don’t know what I said wrong but I feel embarrassed anyways. “What?”

“We are friends,” she says with a grin, “but we can still have a bit of friendly competition.” She punches him in the arm and he hits her back. “At the end of the day a fight is just a fight. It doesn’t have to be super personal.”

Before I can respond, Amar gets up, putting his hands on his hips in a dramatic stance and marches toward the open doorway. The train dips down and Amar doesn’t even hold on to anything, he just shifts and sways with the car’s movement. Everyone follows but lets Amar be the first one to jump, launching himself into the night. The others stream out behind him, and I let the people behind me carry me toward the opening. I’m not afraid of the speed of the train, just the heights, but here the train is close to the ground, so when I jump, I do it without fear. I stumble as I land, taking multiple steps forward before I smack into something slim and hard.

The man with the grating laugh looks over his shoulder at me, raising his eyebrow.

“Uh, sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He grins at me. “You’re that transfer aren’t you, the one that’s gotten all the attention?”

“Uh, I wouldn’t call it a lot…”

He chuckles, “Don’t be so modest, kid. You’ve got something impressive up here.” He taps the side of my head with one of his fingers.

“…Thank you?” I look up at him. His eyes are onyx and every bit as intimidating as the rest of him, and his face is sharp and strong, with high and prominent cheekbones.

“’m Crow, and I think I’ll be seeing you around if what Azalea says is any indicator.”

The crowd starts walking and Crow moves with them, I have to step quickly to keep pace with him.

“Wh-what does Azalea say about me?”

Crow laughs again, and I realize just how fitting his name is. I wonder if it was given to him like mine was. He never answers my question, he just catches up to his sister and the brunette, and I don’t have the courage to follow and press him.

“Have a sip,” Amar says, holding out the flask to me. “You look like you need it.”

I’ve never tasted alcohol. The Abnegation don’t drink it, so it wasn’t even available. But I’ve seen how comfortable it seems to make people, and I desperately want to feel like I’m not wrapped up in skin that’s too tight for me to wear, so I don’t hesitate: I take the flask and drink.

The alcohol burns and tastes like medicine, but it goes down fast, leaving me warm.

“Good job,” Amar says, and he moves on to Zeke, hooking his arm around Zeke’s neck and dragging Zeke’s head against his chest. “I see you’ve met my young friend Ezekiel.”

“Just because my mom calls me that doesn’t mean you have to.” Zeke shoves Amar away playfully.

“Amar’s grandparents were friends with my parents.”

“Were?”

“Well, my dad’s dead, and so are the grandparents,” Zeke says.

“What about your parents?” I ask Amar.

He shrugs. “Died when I was young. Train accident. Very sad.” He grins like it’s not. “And my grandparents died not long after I became an official member of Dauntless. My grandpa had cancer and grandma just kind of...gave up without him.”

He tilts his head up to the sky, and his eyes reflect the moonlight. For a moment I feel like he is showing me a secret self, one carefully hidden beneath layers of charm and humor and Dauntless bravado. It scares me, that secret self seems hard, and cold, and sad.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

He shrugs. “Eh, you know. That’s life, I guess, and death. It just comes at you whether you’re ready or not.”

Then that other side to him is gone and his smile is back. He jogs up toward the front of the crowd with the flask in hand. He throws his arm around Amelie and they both stumble, laughing. 

“What about you?” Zeke says. “You have parents?”

“Everyone has parents,” I say flatly.

“I meant, like, what’re they like.”

“I have one parent,” I say. “My mom died a long time ago.”

I remember the funeral, all the other Abnegation filling up my house and showing their sympathy and solidarity in the form of food and cleaning our house. They boxed up all of her clothes and everything else until there was nothing left of her. I remember hearing murmuring that she died in childbirth, with a sibling of mine that died only minutes later. But I don’t remember her being pregnant, not at all. I shake my head, banishing the thought. It is just a childhood memory, kind of hazy around the edges and unreliable at best.

“And your dad? How did he take your choice, Visiting Day is coming up you know.”

“No,” I say distantly. “He’s not okay with it at all.”

My father won’t come on Visiting Day; I will never see or speak to him again. But I am not upset about that.

* * *

The Erudite sector is pristine, unsettlingly pristine. The tall apartments and office buildings loom over my head and they feel ominous in the dark night. The buildings aren’t dark in the slightest; homes and workplaces alike are still alight and I can see silhouettes moving around even though it’s past midnight. Most of the shops in the Pit close down around ten, which is when people start turning in. The only lights I’ve ever seen on in Dauntless after midnight are the lights in the Pyre. I can’t imagine actually wanting to work this late.

As we get closer to Erudite Tower and to the library, their faction’s pride and joy, I can see the lobbies of different buildings with people moving through them like cogs in a machine. It’s a wonder to watch; all of them, young and old, in crisp blue clothes, with smooth hair, and sharp makeup that makes them look as beautiful as it does intimidating. Vanity, my father would say. They are so concerned with looking good that they make themselves fools for it.

They don’t look vain to me. They look beautiful; they look like people who make every effort to feel as smart as they are supposed to be. The way that they look is a testament to their faction’s cosmetic developments and it’s not my place to judge. Even the transfers from Erudite still keep up appearances, coming into training with makeup that smudges when they get hit. The first time I struck Kai I came away with a fist covered in his skin color and lip gloss. 

Erudite is a haven I might have chosen. Instead I chose the haven that mocks them through the windows, that sends Amar into their library to cause a stir.

The library is made almost entirely of glass with bright flowers in the planters leading up to it. inside I can see no less than a few hundred people bustling around.

We stroll into the library like we belong there, and I stop to examine one of the screens secured to the wall. It's running a report probably from early in the day. I ignore the subtitles at the bottom in favor of examining the video that accompanies it. Leaving the Hub are Jeanine Matthews and Carolina Malachite. Jeanine’s pitch black hair is pulled back from her face and her storm cloud gray eyes are piercing, her navy jacket is buttoned up to her throat. Carolina is a head taller than her and her brown eyes are just as intense as Jeanine’s, framed perfectly by her black hair that has been pulled into an intricate bun. They’re beautiful, that is the first thing that I notice. They appear to be deep in conversation, speaking quietly with each other but making direct eye contact with the camera; as they walk their hands brush over and over again despite having no need to walk so close. I cannot imagine what sort of information they must be passing between them to walk so closely

But then I shake my head and walk away. The Erudite leader and representative are none of my concern. I know that my father never liked them, so I can’t help but wonder how bad they could really be.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?

We all climb the translucent stairs together, coming up at the front of this massive room with a high glass ceiling that I wouldn’t even be able to see if not for the white support beams crisscrossing it. The library is so much louder than I would have expected it to be, but all around me there are people talking and laughing and working in groups. Some of them even appear to be my age, initiates just like me but while I’m learning to fight they’re learning advanced math and how to work this late into the night without becoming delirious.

“Hey, Noses!” Amar yells over the noise. “Check this out!”

His voice carries across the room, echoing and getting the attention of most of the people. They look up from books, screens, and projects, pausing their conversations too as Amar turns and moons them. The Dauntless burst into laughter.

“Excuse me,” I hear a very annoyed masculine voice snap. That voice is the reason that I am the first one down the stairs and out the door.

Amar appears a few minutes behind us looking astonished.

“What happened?” Amelie asks.

“I – uh, I just got cussed out by a really good looking guy with some _really_ good looking hair.”

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Honestly, I’m a little impressed.”

We all burst into laughter again. In the bright light streaming from the windows, I am the only one who can see that Amar is blushing. He holds the flask up like a trophy and points at Shauna.

“Young one,” he says. “I dare you to scale the sculpture in front of the Upper Levels building.”

She catches the flask when he throws it and takes a swig.

“You got it,” she says, grinning.

* * *

By the time they get to me, everyone is pretty drunk; they lurch with every footstep and laugh at every joke no matter how dumb. I feel warm, despite the cool air, but my mind is still sharp, taking in everything about the night; the rich smell of lake, the sound of bubbling laughter, the blue-black of the sky and the silhouette of each building against it. My legs are sore from running and walking and climbing, and still I haven’t fulfilled a dare.

We’re getting close to Dauntless now, passing in between the part of the city that belongs to no faction specifically. Here the buildings sag where they stand and I know that this is the sort of place that the factionless hang around.

“Who’s left?” Amelie’s glances over everyone until her eyes land on me. “Ah, the numerically named initiate from Abnegation. Four, is it?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“A Stiff,” says the man who was leaning against Amar on the train. He’s the one holding the flask, the one determining the next dare. So far I’ve watched people scale tall structures, I’ve watched them jump into dark holes and wander into empty buildings to retrieve a faucet or a desk chair, I’ve watched them run naked down alleyways and stick needles through their earlobes without numbing them first. If I was asked to concoct a dare, I would not be able to think of one. It’s a good thing I’m the last person to go.

But they could think of anything for me to do. Any death defying stunt; anything that could kill me.

“Stiffs are uptight,” he says like it’s just some sort of fact of life. “So, to prove you’re really Dauntless now…I dare you to get a tattoo.”

I look at the ink marking each and every single one of them, on their wrists, arms, shoulders, and throats. There are piercings through their ears, noses, eyebrows, and lips. My skin is healed, whole, unlike me. I should be as scarred and marred on the outside as I am on the inside.

I shrug. “Fine.”

He tosses me the flask and it tastes even more bitter going down this time than it did the first time.

* * *

Tori opens the door looking bleary eyed and annoyed. Her hair is hanging over the left side of her face and she glares at us, except for when she looks at me she just raises her eyebrow.

“Please,” Amar says, “it’s for a game of Dare.”

“Are you sure you want a tired woman to tattoo your skin, Four? This ink doesn’t wash off,” she says to me.

“I trust you,” I say and I’m shocked at how easily the words come. All my life there has never been anyone that I could really trust, or at least not since my mother died.

“Right.” Tori yawns. “The things I do for Dauntless tradition. I’ll be right back, I’m going to put on pants.

On the way here I thought about I might want to get tattooed and where, but I’m still drawing a blank. Nothing seems good enough, meaningful enough. Maybe I shouldn’t think so much about, just go with what I want. But that doesn’t feel right either.

A few seconds later Tori emerges wearing pants, her feet still bare. “Come on in.”

“Actually,” the brunette woman whose name I still don’t know interrupts, “as fun as that sounds, I have business to attend to.”

“You are not leaving me alone with them,” Tori groans. “Come on, Alison.”

“Duty calls,” Alison says without a trace of remorse.

“More like Azalea calls.” Tori rolls her eyes and Alison shrugs sort of helplessly.

“I’m not going to say you’re wrong.”

Crow and his sister snicker and then Crow whispers something in Alison’s ear that makes her elbow him in the ribs.

“Are you two coming or not?” She rolls her eyes.

“Sure,” Crow’s sister drawls. “Why not?”

“Raven,” Tori sighs and Raven shrugs.

The trio walk away toward the main part of the Pit again.

“Y’all are lame!” Amar calls after them before they disappear around the corner.

“We’re going in through the back,” Tori says. “Come on.”

We follow her through her living room, which is tidy except for the sheets of paper spread over her coffee table, each one marked with a different drawing. Some of them are harsh and simple, like most of the tattoos I’ve seen, and others are more intricate, detailed. I pause at the coffee table, looking over one of the designs; it depicts all the faction symbols, without the circles that usually bind them. The Amity tree is at the bottom, forming a kind of root system for the eye of Erudite and the Candor scales. Above them, the Abnegation hands seem almost to cradle the Dauntless flames; like the symbols are growing into one another.

The others have moved past me already and I jog to catch up with them, passing through the kitchen which is clean but old. She opens a door next to her refrigerator that leads into a lounge room and in smaller adjourning rooms are chairs where I assume you sit to get tattooed. 

I’ve walked past the parlor before but never cared to go inside. Needles never bothered me, sure, I wasn’t going to find a reason to attack my own body with them. I guess I have one now, those needles are a way for me to separate myself from my past, not just in the eyes of my fellow Dauntless, but in my own eyes, every time I look at my own reflection.

The walls of the room are covered in pictures; some in glass frames, others haphazardly tacked to the wall, some just drawn on the wall directly. One of the pillars around the wall of the room is dedicated entirely to Dauntless flames; some black and simple, others colorful and barely recognizable. Tori turns on the light over one of the chairs and arranges her materials on a tray next to it. The other Dauntless gather around us like they’re getting ready to see a performance of some kind. I can’t stop my face from growing warm at all of the attention. 

“Basic principles of tattooing,” Tori says. “The less cushion under the skin, or the bonier you are in a particular area, the more painful the tattoo. For your first one it’s probably best to get it done on, I don’t know, your arm, or-”

“Your butt cheek,” Zeke suggests, with a snort of laughter.

Tori shrugs. “It wouldn’t be the first time. Or the last.”

I look at the man who dared me, he raises his eyebrows back at me. I know what everyone expects me to get; something small and easily concealed. I stare at the walls for a long time until Tori says, “We’ve also got binders if you want to flip through those.”

One design catches my eye, an elaborate dagger piercing through a heart. I couldn’t explain it if someone had asked why, but it called to me. Something about my heart having been pierced so many times over, what was one more?

“That one,” I say, pointing to it.

“Got it,” Tori says. “Got a location in mind?”

I have a scar, a faint gouge in my knee from when I fell down on the sidewalk as a child. It’s always seemed stupid to me that none of the pain I’ve experienced has left a visible mark. Sometimes, without a way to prove it to myself, I began to doubt that I had lived through it at all, with the memories becoming hazy over time. I want to have some kind of reminder that while wounds heal, they don’t disappear forever. I carry them everywhere, always, and that is the way of things, the way of scars.

That is what this tattoo will be for me: a scar. And it seems fitting that it should document the worst memory of pain that I have.

I rest my hand on my rib cage, remembering the bruises that were there, and the fear I felt for my life. My father had a series of bad nights right after my mother died.

“You sure?” Tori asks. “That’s about as painful a place as you can get it.”

“Good.” I sit down in the chair.

The small crowd cheers and starts passing around another flask, this one copper instead of silver and significantly larger than the first.

“So we have a masochist in the chair tonight. Lovely.” Tori sits on the stool next to me and puts on a pair of rubber gloves. I sit forward, lifting up the hem of my shirt but not pulling it off all the way. She soaks a cotton ball in rubbing alcohol, covering my ribs with it. She’s about to move away when she frowns and pulls at my skin with her fingertip. Rubbing alcohol bites into the half-healed skin of my back, and I wince.

“How did this happen, Four?” she asks.

I look up and notice that Amar is staring at me, his smile gone again. “He’s an initiate,” he says. “They’re all cut and bruised at this point. You should see them all limping around together. It’s sad.”

“I have a giant one on my knee,” volunteers Zeke. “It’s the sickest blue color-”

Zeke rolls up his pant leg to display his bruise to the others, and they all start sharing their own bruises, their own scars: “Got this when they dropped me after the zip line.” “Well, I’ve got a stab wound from your grip slipping during knife-throwing, so I think we’re even.” Tori eyes me and for a moment I think that she doesn’t believe me. But she doesn’t ask again, she gets to work. 

Someone hands me the flask.

My throat is still on fire from the alcohol when the needle touches my ribs. But I don’t mind the pain. 

I relish it.

“Amar,” Amelie says with just a little slur to her words, “you’ve got to finish your story about getting cussed out by that Erudite.”

Amar chuckles. “Not gonna lie, he was pretty damn attractive. There wasn’t much to it other than he yelled at me, I knew that the Noses were wordy but I don’t think I’ve ever heard one person use the word ‘fuck’ and its variations so many times in a single breath. He got pretty creative with it, you guys should have seen it; and no one else seemed to mind either. They were all just like, ‘ _yeah whatever, just a normal Tuesday night with this guy screaming his lungs out_ ’. I think I might have even seen someone timing it.” We all share a laugh at that. “I called him ‘ _hot stuff_ ’ on my way out the door and I honestly thought he was going to start yelling again.”

“God, Amar,” Zeke rolls his eyes. “Were you fucking with this guy or trying to fuck him.”

Amar shrugs, “A little bit of both.”

I close my eyes and listen to them all talk until it becomes white noise. I’m going be sore in the morning; my ribs are going to hurt, and my legs are going to hurt, and my head is probably going to hurt the worst out of all of it.

* * *

Oh god, my head.

Eric is perched on the edge of his mattress, tying his shoes. The skin around his bottom lip is red, he must have pierced it recently. I haven’t really been paying attention.

“You look like hell,” he says.

I sit up slowly and the motion makes my head throb more.

“I hope that when you lose, you don’t use it as an excuse,” he says, sneering a little. “Because I would have beat you anyway.”

He gets up, stretches, and leaves the dorm. I hold my head in my hands for a few seconds and then get up to take a shower. I have to stand with half my body under the water and half out, because of the ink on my side. The Dauntless stayed with me for hours, waiting for the tattoo to be finished, and by the time we left, all the flasks were empty. Tori gave me a thumbs-up as I stumbled out of the tattoo parlor, and Zeke slung an arm across my shoulders and said, “I think you’re Dauntless now.”

Last night I relished the words and wouldn’t trade them for anything. Today I would probably trade them for my old head back, the one that was focused and determined and didn’t feel like tiny men had taken a jackhammer to it. I stand under the cold water for a few more minutes and then get out and look at the clock on the wall. Ten minutes to the fight; I’m late for initiation already and Eric is right, I am going to lose.

I run toward the training room with my feet halfway out of my shoes and pressing my cold hand against my forehead as a way to ease the ache. When I burst through the door, the transfer initiates are all gathered around the mat. At the edge of the room are some of the Dauntless initiates. Out of the corner of my eye I see Azalea Morgan leaning against a pillar and watching the other initiates, but looks at me when I walk in. Of all of the days for her to show up…

Amar stands in the center of the mat, he checks his watch and gives me a pointed look.

“Nice of you to join us,” he says. I can tell just by his expression that the friendship we shared last night does not extend to the training room. “Tie your shoes and don’t waste any more of my time.”

Eric steps up onto the mat and loudly cracks his knuckles, looking confidently at the crowd. I tie my laces quickly and tuck the ends inside of my shoes so they won’t get in the way before I step up onto the other side of the mat.

As I face Eric, all I can think about is the pounding in my head, the burning in my side. Then Amar steps back; Eric rushes forward and hits me square in the jaw.

I stumble back, holding my face. All the pain runs together in my mind. I put up my hands to block the next punch. My head throbs and I see his leg move. I try to twist away from the kick, but his foot hits me hard in the ribs. I feel a sensation like an electric shock through the left side of my body.

“This is easier than I thought it would be,” Eric says with a sneer.

My cheeks burn with shame, but his arrogance leaves me an opening and therefore an opportunity that I seize, uppercutting him in the stomach.

The flat of his hand smacks my ear, making it ring and I lose my balance. I hardly realize that I have fallen until I catch myself.

“You know,” Eric says quietly, “I think I’ve figured out your real name.”

My vision is blurry with half a dozen kinds of pain. I wasn’t aware that it could come in so many varieties, like different flavors; acid and fire and ache and sting.

He hits me again, trying for my face but striking my collarbone instead. He shakes out his hand as he says, “Should I tell them? Get everything out in the open?”

He has my name on his tongue, _Angela Eaton_ , a far more threatening weapon than his fists could ever be. Everyone who doesn’t remember what I looked like that first day will know. My relationship to the other initiates is strange as things are now. Worst of all, somehow, I just know that it will get back to Marcus what I’ve become. 

The Abnegation say, in hushed voices even within their own homes, that the problem with many Erudite is their vanity. But I think it is their arrogance, the pride they take in knowing things that others do not. In that I have found Eric’s weakness. He does not believe that I could ever hurt him half as much as he can hurt me. He thinks that I am exactly as he believes me to be; weak, self-sacrificing, passive. A Stiff.

My pain and fear melt into rage, the kind of rage that makes your hands tremble and a scream build in your throat that you can never manage to push past your lips. I grab his arm to hold him in place and with my free hand I swing again and again. I don’t even see where I’m hitting him; I don’t see or hear or feel anything.

Then finally, like coming up for air after being submerged in dark water, I hear his screams and that brings me crashing back to reality. He clutches his face with both hands; blood soaks his chin and stains his teeth red, he tries to wrench out of my grip but I am holding onto him with everything that I have.

I kick him so hard in the side that he topples. Over his hands, I meet his eyes; they are glassy and unfocused. His blood is bright against his skin and fear chills me to the bone as I realize that I did that. It’s Eric, yeah, but he’s still a person, and I hurt him. I made him scream. I am reminded of the woman from the simulation. It’s not about innocence, it’s about the harm that I am capable of causing with my own two hands.

My knuckles throb as I walk out without being dismissed, accompanied by the sound of high heels against stone from another direction. It is the only sound I am aware of as I leave.

* * *

The Dauntless compound is a good place to sulk if there ever were one; plenty of dark and hidden places to curl up in and recover.

I find a narrow hallway that branches off from the Pit and slide down against the wall, curling up as small as I can make myself. I am not so small these days. 

The cold of the stone seeps into my back and eases the pain just a little bit. But it can do nothing to stop the noise in my head. All of my aches and pains have returned with a vengeance but I cannot focus on them, all I can do is stare at my hands stained with Eric’s blood that won’t come off no matter how much I pick at it. This can’t be what I’m supposed to be turning into, this can’t just be the Dauntless that every transfer grows into. I think of Amar, Tori, Amelie, Crow, Azalea; they are not the sort of people that would do what I just did. It doesn’t matter that it was Eric, who has been picking on me since day one, that could have been anyone and it still wouldn’t have been okay. I know that it wouldn’t have been; but that could have been Zeke, or Shauna, or Lauren, or Mia. This isn’t the sort of Dauntless that I am supposed to be; this can’t be the kind of person that I am supposed to be.

“Hey.” I look up to see Shauna knocking against the stone wall like it’s a door. “This isn’t quite the victory dance that I was expecting.”

“I don’t dance,” I say flatly.

“Yeah, I should have known better.” She sits down across from me, her back against the opposite wall. She draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them. Our feet are just a few inches apart. I don’t know why I notice that. 

Well, yes I do, she’s a girl. I’ve always noticed girls in a way that I didn’t think I should.

I don’t know how to talk to girls, especially Dauntless girls. Something tells me you can never know what to expect from a Dauntless girl.

“Eric is in the hospital,” she says with a grin. “They think you broke his nose. You definitely knocked out one of his teeth.”

I look down. I knocked out someone’s tooth?

“I was wondering if you could help me.” She nudges my foot with hers. As I suspected: Dauntless girls are unpredictable. 

“Help you with what?”

“Fighting. I’m no good at it. I keep getting humiliated in the arena.” She shakes her head. “I have to face off with this girl in two days, her name’s Ashley but she makes everyone call her Ash.” She rolls her eyes. “You know, Dauntless flames, ash, whatever. Anyway, she’s one of the best people in our group, and I’m afraid she’s going to kill me. Like actually kill me.”

“Why do you want my help?” I say, suddenly suspicious. “Because you know I’m a Stiff and we’re supposed to help people?”

“What? No, of course not,” she says. Her eyebrows furrow in confusion. “I want your help because you’re the best in your group, obviously.”

I laugh. “No, I’m not.” 

“You and Eric were the only undefeated ones and you just beat him, so yeah, you are. Listen, if you don’t want to help me, all you have to do is-”

“I’ll help,” I say. “I just don’t really know how.”

“We’ll figure it out,” she says. “Tomorrow afternoon? Meet you in the Dauntless-born training room?”

I nod. She grins, gets up, and starts to leave. But a few steps away and she looks back at me over her shoulder.

“Quit sulking, Four,” she says. “Everyone’s impressed with you. Embrace it.”

I watch her silhouette turn the corner at the end of the hallway. I was so disturbed by the fight that I never thought about what beating Eric meant; that I am now first in my initiate class. I may have chosen Dauntless as a haven, but I’m not just surviving here, I’m excelling.

I stare at Eric’s blood on my knuckles and smile.


End file.
